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The earliest poster in the collection comes from 1896 and advertises the Western Lawn Tennis Tournament at the Kenwood Country Club in Chicago.

Another, by drawn by British artist Tom Purvis in 1930, is an advert for the flagship Regent Street store of London upmarket fashion shop Austin Reed and depicts a suave tennis player sitting on a bench.

Made in 1919, Sporthaus Lazar by Gewista Griessler (left), is estimated at $1,000 to $1,500, while the poster on the right, by Frank Newbould, may go for $4,000

If you have a spare $5000 you may be in with a chance of buying the poster on the left, while the Kenwood Country Club poster on the right could go for $1,000

Ace: These two posters, dating from 1916 and 1908, have a combined worth of around $13,000

Others advertise Swift bicycles and Peugeot motorbikes. Tennis also features in a host of posters for popular French tourist resorts.

The collection was compiled by an Australian poster enthusiast over several decades and is thought to be the largest ever to come to auction.

The posters will be sold individually for prices ranging between $250 to $20,000 and are collectively tipped to fetch a whopping $170,000 in the Swann Auction Galleries sale.

Nicholas Lowry, president of Swann Auction Galleries and one of the world's leading authorities on vintage posters, said: 'All 70-plus posters have come to us from a private collector in Australia.

'He is obsessed with vintage posters of all kinds and has spent decades amassing this collection.

Smashing: 1926's Dunlop/Tennis by Franz Jakob Hinklein, estimated at $1,500 to $2,000 (left) and Jardin des Dauphins by Gaston Gorde, published in 1930, estimated at $1,200 to $1,800 (right)

'The posters cover a century of tennis from the 1890s to the late 1990s. The collection is not just about posters for tennis tournaments but any poster involving tennis.

'There are vintage posters for Wimbledon and Roland Garos but also ones advertising destinations and products through an association with tennis.

'For years tennis was played by the well to do and the sport was used to advertise products to the rich such as Swift bicycles, Peugeot motorbikes and Dodge cars.

'The posters cover a range of different styles including art nouveau and art deco and the imagery is infectious.

'We believe this is the largest collection of tennis posters ever to come to auction, which makes this sale the Wimbledon of vintage poster auctions - it is the absolute best.'

The sale will take place in New York on August 6.

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World's largest collection of vintage tennis posters for sale for $170,000